Light in Death
by Alex Prosper
Summary: Death is funny in that it illuminates the life that was once so mysterious to you, and things to which you blinded yourself are made clear. I now realize – as must have all dying men before me – what I have truly lost.


**Disclaimer: **Death Note, it's characters and content are not mine. I make no money off this work. This is fan work intended for entertainment only.

Author's note: I first posted this as a prologue to my first Death Note fanfic back in 2007 or '08. I took it down years ago - hadn't known how to move a story along, plain and simple. However, I've just moved to a new apartment and was going through some old stuff when I found the hard copy of the old fic and indulged in a bit of fond criticism. I found that despite the fic's idea being silly, with whatever originality it possessed overshadowed by decent yet boring prose, the prologue itself was actually pretty good for some of my novice work. I'd like to post it now by itself and share it with whomever cares to read it. Originally, this was supposed to delve into Light's character during his final moments, but with new insights shed on the characters by Death Note's author and illustrator, I don't think it reveals anything new. So I rewrote it in 1st person, and in so doing hopefully invoke in the reader a more poignant and personal experience with the character.

Or that's probably been overdone too. I don't know, haven't been 'round the Death Note fandom in years. Neither do I plan to return. Just sharing an old piece, is all. You've been warned. :)

* * *

Light in Death

I don't know when it happened but at some point I've gone numb. I lie boneless on these dusty warehouse stairs, but I don't feel the steps digging into my spine. I feel nothing. I don't know where I thought I might go, and where these stairs lead will never be known to me. My breaths are too soft, my last ones; my brain has shut down everything except itself, running on its last remaining cells. The wretched fear of death that had crazed my once formidable mind has passed. All the noise, the pain, the desires are gone.

It's over.

But there is something still there – a dull-edged despondency, warm memories of childhood, the innocence I lost and for which I now pine with a heart full of dead cells and regret, and thoughts of what I will soon leave behind. The same thing everyone leaves behind – a rotten world.

I've made grave errors, and not just in the reckless nature of my tactics against L's successors. I grew too comfortable over the years. Death is funny in that it illuminates the life that was once so mysterious to you, and things to which you blinded yourself are made clear. I now realize – as must have all dying men before me – what I have truly lost.

I lost sight of myself, of the pure and honest ideals I once held so dear, dominated by the god-like power of the Death Note. My voice of reason was once logical, fair, and at times – when my soul softened itself just a little – philosophical. When did it begin to twist into specious vindications? There was a time when I held fast to the beginnings of something _true. _But that was long ago...or perhaps not so long in the eyes of men who've reached years I will never see. Then I tasted power over the very existence of humankind, and these old ideals, this fragile _true_ thing that never lived, became the noose of hypocrisy which executed my old self.

I had caught a glimpse of him on my way here. He'd been reading a book as he passed me by. Plato, perhaps, a righteous thinker – when my soul was soft enough to believe so. Or a biography...Nicolo Tesla most likely. A great man; a terrible injustice done to him and his work.

Or Perhaps the book had been the only piece of fiction I've ever allowed myself: Paradise Lost, and then only parts in which the Fallen spoke. Fictional characters, but ones that held curious fascination for me. I saw regular humans in them, people I passed by every day. Weak, because they allowed the seed of ego to grow beyond their capability to handle, overrun by hatred and envy for one another. It took strength to keep your sight true and fair.

Strength I now see I never had. Fallen. Like everyone. Even L. And Near, someday.

Dying eyes see things of which you only catch a fleeting glimpse from the corner of your eyes, and then tell yourself it's your imagination. I think I might have one foot in this world and the other in the next where these shadows take form. They seem to wait for me like true reapers.

And L. He is there too, standing over me as if in victory – much like I did to him many years ago. No, not like me. He was never like me. He doesn't look smug, which pains me all the more. I know he pities me and still judges me.

"_Light Yagami is Kira. Kira is evil."_

Even as my mind seems to fade, and thoughts and memories become vestiges of their former architecture, I still question: _where did I go wrong? I was to make the world a better place, an ideal place, free of fears, fears of pain and death. _

"_Stop lying, for once, Light. You are dying." _L's voice rings strong in my dying mind, now full of wisps and shadows. Like thunder making the earth tremble, reminding you of where you stand.

Fair enough. Truth is, I had wanted control. Power over other lives. Yes, it had been heady and seductive, I had gotten drunk in it. I hadn't actually cared about the lives I claimed to save. Perhaps once I would have. My honorable instincts, in my younger self, were half compassionate and half egotistical, teetering precariously in the fragile balance of a youth molding himself into a man. But then the Death Note dropped into my life and tipped the scale, and whatever delicate goodwill I had harbored gave way beneath my fattening ego. And so truth is, I loved the Death Note more than anything, guarded it jealously, and hated anything that threatened it. It is that simple.

My second greatest mistake was forgetting I am not an omnipotent god. I am – was – just one man in six billion. Flawed, not perfect; genius, but not all-knowing, and certainly not the only one of my caliber. L's successors taught me that. Men like me dominate the masses when we work – conspire – together, not alone; in secret, not making a grand spectacle of such power for all to see and _covet_. A power that succeeds when used moderately. And that is why my reign was doomed. A simple notion I should have understood, but Kira had made me stupid.

Death is the only friend of _Truth_. It has the power to enlighten. It's too bad that most of us finally experience it after all is said and done.

My eyes are getting heavy.

_How could I have been so stupid? Lose sight. Lost my sight. Got drunk. Got full, too full and lazy and drunk. Plato...justice...temperance...stupid...temperance..._

"_Childish," _says L. Still looming, another shadow waiting for me.

_I...was...childish..._

My eyes are so heavy now...

I think I would give anything to redo the last five years of my life, so that even if my existence were cut short again, my final emotion wouldn't be this...cold.

My eyes have gotten too heavy...

_Fin_


End file.
